Q. In my shul the Gabbai hands out cards to those who will be called up for an aliyah, indicating for which aliyah the congregant will be called up. On occasion I receive the card for an aliyah for which I feel I am not fit. Examples are: the Haftarah on Shabbas Shuvah or on a Taanis Tzibbur. I feel that someone special should be one who calls on the congregation to do T'shuva or to seek out Hashem. And I am not special enough for that position.
I understand that would I be called up for any aliyah I may not refuse, as this is an affront to the Torah. But perhaps the cards do not create this obligation.
May I refuse the aliyah? And if I accept the card, may I return it with the refusal until the point where I am called up?
A. The Talmud (Brachos 55a) teaches "Three things shorten a man's days and years: To be given a scroll of the Torah to read from and to refuse". Although the Rif, Rosh, Meiri and others did codify this statement, Rambam, Tur and Shulchan Oruch, did not. Eliahu Rabah (139, 2) explains that the Talmudic adage applied only on earlier times when each person called would read the Torah himself, unlike in our days when the Baal Koreh reads aloud.
Chidah in Chaim Shoal (13) mentions the above, as the reason for the Sephardic tradition not to call to the Torah using one's name (see also Halichot Olam 7,195, and Torah Lishma 95).
If there is a valid reason for not wanting the aliyah, a person can refuse, as when the called reads himself and is unprepared (Mishna Berura 139: 1), when he is unable to contribute for Tzdaka and will be embarrassed not to make the accustomed Misheberach (Torah Lishma 428), he stammers (Maayan Omer 7,9), or is afraid of Ain Horah, as when called right after father or brother were given an aliya (Yalkut Yosef 2 p. 118).
However, Chashukei Chemed (Bava Metzia 22a – Yuma p. 307), expresses doubt when a Rabbi refuses an aliya, due to the uncertainty of the sincerity of the one who paid and is now granting the honor of the kivud given to him.
Horav Shlomo Miller's Shlit"a opinion is that even when not called by name, one should not refuse because he thinks himself as undeserving. On the contrary, that is the appropriate indication of being truly worthy.
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit"a
Important Numbers
